nd take care o' the rest on't. Thee's want it
bad enough afore th' spring comes."

Madge replaced the stocking without examining it. She was heavy at
heart.

Before morning her mother was dead.

Madge went back to her own cottage, carrying with her just a sovereign
in sixpences and fourpenny-bits. She sat down and wept. No one came near
her. Her former gossips, always jealous of her beauty, left her alone
with her sorrow. But she knew that she could not remain idle. Something
must be done. So she went out to rick-work, but there was none to be
had. From farm to farm Madge wearily toiled along, meeting the same
answer everywhere--"Had got more on now than they could find work for."
Madge felt exceedingly ill as she slowly wended her way homewards. Then
for the first time she remembered that she must shortly become a mother.

In her weak state Madge caught cold. She shivered incessantly. The poor
child could not rise from her bed in the morning, her limbs were so
stiff and her head so bad. She lay there all day, crying to herself.
Hunger at last, towards evening, compelled her to get up and seek food.
There was only a piece of crust in the cupboard and a little lard. She
was trying to masticate these when there came a tap at the door. "Come
in," said Madge. Farmer Humphreys now appeared in the doorway. He was a
short, thick man, with a shock-head of yellow hair, small grey eyes, and
lips almost blue.

"There be ten weeks' rent a-owing," said he, sitting down; "and we
don't mean to wait no longer. And there's a half-side o' bacon an' a
load of faggots."

"How much is it altogether?"

"Seventeen-and-six."

"I ain't a-got but a pound, and Absalom bean't come whoam."

"The vagabond--cuss 'im!"

"A bean't no vagabond," cried Madge, firing up in defence of her
husband.

"Bist thee a-goin' to pay--or bisn't?" said the fellow, beginning to
bully.

Madge counted him out the money, and he left, casting an ugly leer on
her as he went.

Half-a-crown remained. On that half-crown Madge lived for one whole
month. The cold clung to her and grew worse. Her tongue burned and her
limbs shook; it was fever as well as cold--that low aguish fever, the
curse of the poor. Bread and lard day by day, bread and lard, and a
little weak tea. And at the month's end the half-crown was gone:
sixpence went for her last half-dozen faggots. Madge crawled upstairs
and wrapped herself up in a blanket, sitting on the side of the bed. It
was